There have been many negative news reports predicting a recession recently. There's a reason for this: bad news is good news. The same applies to social media. People are more willing to pass on and take in bad news than good news. For example a tweet that says, "My car got me to work without any problems again today." is a lot less interesting than "My car broke down on the motorway today. I'll never buy a Ford again!"

This is why monitoring what people are saying about your brand or product is so imperative. This is particularly important in an age of social media where that negative message could quickly go global. Fortunately by reacting to negative messages and using blogger outreach you can use bad news like the recession to your advantage.

Reactions to negative messages:

• If a blogger has been made redundant offer them a free trial of your recruitment service.
• If a Facebook group has been started to complain that your product is now more expensive, apologise and explain why the price change has been made. Maybe even offer a one-off discount to members of the group.
• If someone isn't happy with their mobile phone. Offer them a free trial of your company's phone. Chances are they will want to keep the phone at the end of the trial so offer them the option to buy it.
• If a blogger can't find any holidays in their price range, suggest some cheap options.
• If someone tweets to say their taxi is late, offer your services instead. (See feverbee)

Managed correctly bad news can really be good news for your company.

UPDATE: Stephen Davies of Prblogger.com gives a good example of the Carphone Warehouse reacting to a negative blog post here.